investigating ecological subjectivity: intimate transactions … · 2016-05-21 · pixelraiders 2:...
TRANSCRIPT
PixelRaiders 2: Interdisciplinary Art/Design Conference, 6-8 April 2004, Sheffield Hallam University, England
Keith Armstrong
Investigating Ecological Subjectivity: Intimate Transactions (Shifting Dusts)
Abstract/Summary
I illustrate the social dimensions of digital creativity that drive my interdisciplinary praxis
by introducing an art making methodology guided by eco-philosophical concerns, known
as ‘ecosophical’. I demonstrate its application by describing the development of a new
work Intimate Transitions (Shifting Dusts). I conclude by suggesting new directions for
this type of practice.
Acknowledgements
I would like to acknowledge the support of QUT’s Creative Industries Faculty, Professor
Stuart Cunningham, the other members of the Transmute Collective (particularly Lisa
O’Neill and Guy Webster), my numerous creative co-collaborators and Julie Dean.
Brief Authors Biography
Dr. Keith Armstrong specialises in collaborative, hybrid, new media works with an
emphasis on performance and site-specific installation. His research over the previous
decade has focused on how scientific and philosophical ecologies can both influence and
direct the design and conception of networked, interactive media artworks. Keith's
artworks have been shown and profiled extensively both in Australia and overseas. He is
a creative director, media designer and system integrator within multidisciplinary teams,
and is the founder and director of the interdisciplinary collective, 'Transmute'. Keith is
currently a Postdoctoral New Media Fellow at Queensland University of Technology's
Creative Industries Faculty, the Queensland editor for the national arts newspaper
Realtime and a member of the QUT Creative Industries Media-Architecture Integration
Advisory Panel to Queensland Government and to Hassell Partners Architects.
Contact Details
Dr. Keith M Armstrong : [email protected] : +61 412 749 729 (mobile)
Postdoctoral fellow, CIRAC, Creative Industries Faculty, Queensland University of
Technology, Kelvin Grove Campus, Brisbane, Australia.
Abstract
Despite countless warnings over past decades we continue to carve away the life support
systems that we and our future generations depend upon. We live under the enduring
mantle of a global crisis, a self-imposed act of unparalleled and seemingly irrational self-
destruction which we misname as ecological – we are the crisis. Numerous contemporary
theorists have suggested that this 'problem of ecology' indicates a crisis of human
subjectivity and agency linked to a fundamental problem in how we image ourselves
within the world. Having observed how much new media art praxis operates largely
without awareness of the homo-ecological implications of those practices I began
developing new processes for conceptualising and developing media art works to which I
applied the term 'ecosophical'. My objective was to discover whether such works could
be used to create contexts within which participants might reflect upon connections
between the ‘problem of ecology’ and the proposed problem of humanity/human
subjectivity. To demonstrate this I introduce the history and context for ecosophical
praxis and describe a project under development, Intimate Transactions (Shifting Dust). I
conclude by suggesting new directions for other artists interested in engaging with this
type of praxis.
Key Quotes
These artworks invent a gift-exchange community involved in a more intimate sense of transactions that we usually consider impersonal. I have coined the term Intimate bureaucracy to capture this type of experimental art that depends on networks of participants (Saper 2001, p. x) The imperative of confronting the unsustainable becomes more pressing. In actuality it is the greatest challenge, terror, opportunity and adventure that the species has ever faced in that our future, and the future of much else, is literally in our hands (Fry 2000)
Intimate Transactions Proof of Concept, Brisbane Powerhouse. Photo Sonja de Sterke
Ecological Context
We remain darkly shaded by the enduring cloud of our induced ecological crisis. Extreme
weather events, ozone depletion, dramatic loss of forest cover, chemical contamination and
a host of other environmental malaises blight every part of our planet. The international
community struggles to ratify even the first-steps of the Kyoto Protocol with the USA
Australia and now Russia abrogating their global responsibilities1. Terrorism rises ever
more prominently on the back of inequity, neo-imperialism, injustice and cronyism2.
As a digital media practitioner living in an economically privileged city in a peaceful,
multicultural society, couldn’t I be forgiven for ignoring such issues?
Numerous contemporary theorists such as Merchant (1992, 1994), Fry (1999, 200, 2003a,
2003b), Baker (1997), Guattari (2000), Sessions (1995) and Naess (1995) have shown
that our acute problem of ecology is underpinned by a crisis of human subjectivity3. They
argue that by continuing to wilfully cause such acute damage to the support systems upon
which we depend, we must fail to comprehend how ecologies function or our key roles
within them. In other words by not imaging our selves as being embedded within these
systems our understanding of self is non-ecological. Australian Design Theorist Tony Fry
(2003) suggests that this ‘pervasive condition of unsustainability’ indicates a myopia
1 For example see news report http://www.abc.net.au/news/scitech/2002/06/item20020626051522_1.htm 2 For example see comment at (URL: http://www.themodernreligion.com/terrorism.htm, accessed 12/12/03) or (URL: http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,12780,1101859,00.html) 3 Translators Pindar and Sutton in Guattari (2000, p.12) explain how Guattari calls subjectivity ‘singularity’ (although they clarify he does not mean it is about being singular per se), but rather it acts at a ‘pre-personal, pre-individual level’. They use the example of a crossroads ‘where several components of subjectification meet to make up who we think we are’.
based upon anthropocentricism. He explains that unsustainability is typically conflated
with global ‘environmental crisis’ and constituted by events such as global warming.
.. while significant biophysical problems get constantly objectified as fixed empirical facts they are frequently the product of human agency, with their severity relative to the positive or negative actions we take en mass. (Fry 2003)
He explains how we must each strive to understand and act through the ‘thinking,
designing and making that has to be done in the face of this situation’, reminding us that
our futures ultimately depend on tackling this enormous problem. By clarifying that the
problem of ecology is a fundamental problem of perception, a problem of how we think
and of how we act, he extends the mantle of ‘sustain-ability’ squarely over our cultural
domain. For the digital maker, designer and artist Fry’s words are an unambiguous
challenge to (reflective) action.
Intimate Transactions Proof of Concept, Brisbane Powerhouse. Photo Sonja de Sterke
A Response
During the past two decades, issues of ecology and unsustainability have rarely been far
from my mind. I am part of a British generation raised under Thatcherism and now as a
recent Australian choke under a slick of ecologically unfriendly Liberal-Conservative
politics. During my own forty-year life span the level and speed of environmental
destruction, combined with a paucity of debate at a governmental level, has been
breathtaking4. However cultural theorists have long connected environmental
unsustainability with social injustice5 and also the unsustainable practices with which we
live our lives6.
Whilst I lacked specific skills in the disciplines which I had commonly assumed to have a
monopoly over potential solutions (such as Environmental Sustainability Science or
Environmental Engineering) I was aware of digital media’s power for stimulating and
catalysing public consciousness and conception7, particularly when lateral, oblique,
suggestive and poetic approaches are pursued8. My own long-term approach has involved
4 Australians have long enjoyed a particular closeness to ancient country (see URL: http://www.wilderness.org.au/campaigns/wildcountry/, accessed 12/12/03) in a way that is much harder to experience in Europe. My first hand witness of its overt demise via the wood pulping of old growth rainforest in Tasmania (See (URL: http://www.wilderness.org.au/campaigns/forests/tasmania/styx/ and http://www.wilderness.org.au/campaigns/forests/tasmania/tarkine/, accessed 12/12/03)) and the rapid deforestation practices of neighbours such as Papua New Guinea, Malaysia and Indonesia added to my growing sense of alarm. 5 Eg. Horkheimer and Adorno exposed connections between the domination of humans and the domination of nature in the 1940’s. 6 E.g. (Fry 1999). 7 E.g. (URL: http://www.earthday.net/footprint/index.asp, accessed 13/12/03) offers a compelling method of calculating world citizens’ environmental footprint. Such discussion and promotion of ecological ideas can be enhanced by capacities of databasing, interactivity, connectivity and rapid communications. 8 Its computational heart affords it an adaptability that has led it to augment or enhance most traditional media forms, birthing powerful new interactive forms and thoroughly infusing many aspects of art making practice (See Manovich 2001, Paul 2003, Rieser and Zapp 2002, etc).
such investigations in and through media arts practice, with outputs primarily being artistic
works and associated critical writings. These artworks aim to link participants situated in
physical and tele-virtual spaces through custom-designed interaction and communication
frameworks.
Over the past decade I began to note that most new media art praxis appeared to be
operating without specific awareness of the ecological implications of those practices. I
was also concerned that my long-term practice as a media artist (and prior careers in IT
and electronics) apparently depended upon an unsustainable tool set. The environmental
deficits of computer technology include bulk energy usage, a cocktail of lethal
manufacturing materials, built-in rapid obsolescence and numerous problems with
recycling and waste treatment9. However Fry and Willis (2000)10 explain how digital
media technology’s ecological impacts may be considered from an alternate perspective.
IT is balanced between worsening problems or redressing them. For the latter to happen, its nature, variable forms, uses and economy (that is, its ecologies) all need to be far better understood, modified and redirected. (Fry and Willis 2000)
They go on to explain how,
.. in the emergent sign/image powered cultures of the age what is needed more than anything else is for the image of the relational impacts of IT to be confronted and engaged as an ontological designing - this implies the beginning of a new kind of information culture in which response-ability and sustain-ability meet in the frame of new desires. (Fry and Willis 2000)
9 Numerous websites on this topic include (URL: http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/journals/esthag-w/2002/nov/tech/kb_microchipanalysis.html, accessed 13/12/03) 10 See Fry and Willis’s detailed discussions of the immediate material, relational and immaterial impacts of IT at (URL: http://www.edf.edu.au/Pathfinding/Archived/IIT/BriefPart1.htm, accessed 12/12/03)
It became clear to me that unless I could re-configure my digital media practice in the
context of Fry and Willis’ ‘response-ability’ and ‘sustain-ability’, as a means for engaging
with the interdisciplinary problem of ecology, I would be compelled to change to a less
destructive form. I therefore began developing new processes for conceptualising and
developing my praxis, to which I applied the term ‘ecosophical’11 (Armstrong 2003). I
proposed new roles for digital makers interested in engaging with issues the problem of
ecology, arising from the presentation, development and theorisation of art works. My
objective was to discover whether such approaches could be used to create contexts within
which participants might reflect upon connections between the ‘problem of ecology’ and
the proposed problem of human subjectivity. I described these approaches in my doctoral
thesis (Armstrong 2003) and the paper Towards an Ecosophical Praxis of New Media
(Armstrong 2003b).
11 Michael Heim (1998) explains the etymology of the word ecosophy as being the wisdom (Sophia) about dwelling (eco or oikos).
Intimate Transactions Proof of Concept, Brisbane Powerhouse. Photo Sonja de Sterke Ecosophical Questions
From 1996 I began to develop a method for Ecosophical praxis, refining a series of key
questions via a process of cyclical action and reflection that involved the production of
three major art works12. These were refined into ten key questions13.
For the design of our major new work Intimate Transactions (Shifting Dust) I drew upon
five of these Ecosophical questions. Question 1 suggests a liquid form of experience
whereby participants’ actions and choices are configured as being integral to the
development of a work in ways that makes them feel both an integrity and an affinity with
12 See #14, Public Relations and Transit_Lounge at (URL: http://www.outlook.com.au/keith/projbase.htm, accessed 12/12/03) 13 These are listed in Armstrong 2003
its outcomes.
Can the work can be identified as being a part of a cyclical process of experiencing.. This implies the need to carefully shape the way in which participants interface with new ‘media spaces’, so that they experience the work through a ‘living’ of the experience that the work either instigates or sets the context for. It is this living that becomes the key factor in the subsequent processes of making meaning for participants. (Armstrong 2003, p. 274)
The cyclical nature of such work implies the continual sending and receiving of media,
albeit in re-cycled or degraded forms. This is an approach particularly suited to nodal,
networked artworks.
Question 2 implies offering participants forms of interface that involve physical and
visceral participation, whilst generating audio-visual cycles evocative of systemic energy
flows. Here ‘energy’ is experienced as a form of connectivity with other participants and
involves an increasing sense of intimacy, despite the fact that participants may be
separated by electronic networks.
Works should allude to the processes of ‘energy’ flow from place to place within ecological systems. ‘Energy’ must actually pass through participants in a way that makes them integral parts of the cycles of energy transfer, exchange and recycling. Therefore are participants are actually woven within the experience and systemic operation of the work itself? (Armstrong 2003, p. 274)
Question 3 stresses how these interpersonal ecologies become a key layer within the work.
Are participants involved within broad scale processes of dialogue that involve both the work and all other participants, and through such processes of exchange and transfer may they begin to feel part of a broader and broadening dialogue which incorporates both the work and all other participants? (Armstrong 2003, p. 274)
Question 4 refers to an aesthetic sensibility that infuses the entire experience.
Is a whole field experience being constituted from which a poetics of energy transfer might be seen to develop? (Armstrong 2003, p. 274)
The term poetics here refers to what Judith Wright calls a ‘responsibility’ that forms a way
of knowing and living in the world. Wright (in Brady 1998, p.viiii) describes this poetics
as that which fosters ‘an awareness of our relationship to and responsibility for the living
world around us’. This implies that through the experiences of the artwork participants
become sensitised to the ecologies implicated within the flows and thematic orientations of
the artwork.
Question 5 is a reminder that ecologies may be deeply upset by human actions.
Will the work react to major imbalances occurring at places of energy transfer in a system in ways that may potentially cause a catastrophic failure of the whole system? (Armstrong 2003, p. 275)
The work should not be immune to participant’s urges if they so choose to ‘crash’ or
partially destroy the experience for themselves and others. This may also happen
accidentally, albeit infrequently.
Configuring Intimate Transactions (Shifting Dust)
Introduction
This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned towards the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling up wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress. Walter Benjamin, Theses on the Philosophy of History, IX (1940)
In the 1940s Walter Benjamin created this dramatic and sobering picture of progress,
called the ‘Angel of History’. This image continues to be influential in the development
of Intimate Transactions (Shifting Dust), a large-scale, new media artwork, due for major
public showings in 2004.
Intimate Transactions Proof of Concept, Brisbane Powerhouse. Photo Sonja de Sterke
Intimate Transactions (Shifting Dust) builds upon an extensive lineage of prior works14.
It will be realised from several interrelated and lightly cooperative physical and on-line
installation elements connected by electronic networks. It is scheduled for completion in
late 2004 with final presentations in 2004–06 and is being trialled in phases throughout
2003-04. At the time of writing (December 03) it had been shown as a single, non-
networked installation for a small invited reference groups of peers, public, curators and
partners at the Brisbane Powerhouse Centre for the Live Arts. After each showing we 14 See a full back catalogue at (URL: http://www.outlook.com.au/keith/projbase.htm, accessed 12/12/03)
facilitated substantial feedback sessions which were recorded, analysed and used to make
a documentary video of the work. This document will be shown at the Pixel Raiders
conference in April 04. Intimate Transactions was created by the Brisbane-based
‘Transmute Collective’ which I direct and includes performance director Lisa O'Neill and
sound director Guy Webster, working with numerous other co-collaborators15.
In the completed work particular modes of interchange between each installation
site/node on the network will be controlled by an online server which filters, augments or
bounces information between sites. Particular operations will be based upon a
programmed model that draws conceptually upon aspects of a simplified ecology
(described later). Participants will activate this interactive work both as individual and
collective subjects within the aegis of this systemic model, allowing them to act within
dialogic frameworks of interaction and cooperation. Hence they will have integral roles
to play in the shifting of these informational flows. These approaches are consistent with
the first and third ecosophical questions discussed previously. The work will be designed
to be experienced fluidly and seamlessly with images comprised from a generative,
evolving, flowing combination of bodily images, dynamic texts and spatial sound (also
consistent with Question 1).
Two or more networked participants situated in different physical or geographical
locations will interact simultaneously with the work by making subtle movements with
their bodies. Online participants will also interact remotely via online interfaces. Each
15 For full details see (URL: http://www.outlook.com.au/keith/projects/intimate_t/inttrans.htm, accessed 12/12/03)
participant may choose to act in a loosely collaborative manner (consistent with Question
2). In order to both maintain and enhance each participant’s experiences of fluid
navigation within the artwork all participants learn how to avoid states of acute
imbalance16 (consistent with Question 5).
Intimate Transactions Proof of Concept, Brisbane Powerhouse. Photo Sonja de Sterke
Participants lean backwards into an abstract form of furniture, coined the ‘body-shelf’
which sustains the needs of a constantly moving body. This form is a tangible interface
device which uses embedded sensors and smart materials to detect subtle bodily
movements and gestures. Throughout this visceral and virtual experience participants
have the opportunity to maintain clear awareness of their bodily actions as they build
impromptu performances from simple physical movements. Participants therefore share
16 This is achieved through differing physical-audio-visual-kinetic combinations
an experience that is simultaneously embodied and yet also immersive. (Consistent with
Question 2). The basis of this interface has already been created and is detailed in the
accompanying images.
Developing Intimate Transactions
Intimacy evokes ideas of subtle indirect qualities, arising from close personal
relationships and implied interrelated influence. Transactions are communicative
exchanges involving two or more people with outcomes that affect all parties. The
completed work allows participants to experiment with simple principles of ecological
subjectivity by invoking Intimate Transactions, considered as being a pre-requisite of
ecological subjectivity and therefore a key conceptual vehicle for the work.
It is intended that the resulting experience will increase participants’ sensitivity to what
Baker (1997) calls ‘ecological selfhood’ (consistent with Questions 3 and 4). This would
be achieved by pairing showings of Intimate Transactions with seminars, publications,
festivals and forums where ideas of ecological subjectivity would be presented via
written texts, presentations and discussions. Baker explains that such understandings of
subjectivity, (epistemology and ethics) should be located within social and ecological
systems that acknowledge their processes of relationality, historicity, reflexivity and
narrativity. In a recent conversation (Baker and Armstrong, 2003) she suggested a model
that implicates ecological selfhood based upon a dialogic relationship between three
enfolded conceptions: ‘me’, ‘us’ and ‘others’. �
ME is.. that bit the participant identifies as them – as he or she – it’s that bit that’s ME– that includes my fingers my toes, my headache, whatever.. as well
as this thing I call me. It’s how I’m feeling, the fact that I’m nervous because I’m sitting here and everyone is watching..
US – for most people on the planet US is other people like me! Other PEOPLE like me. US is a more inclusive term. US is those entities with whom I relate. They are like me in some way and that might be a forest or a dog or a tree or a grub or a sand dune or whatever – and therefore the notion of what is us is fuzzy and inclusive of nonhumans.. different sorts of humans and the possibilities of aliens or whatever.
And then you’ve got the OTHER – which is that stuff which is not like me, that stuff that is really other to me that I have no connection to. (Baker, E. and Armstrong, K 2003)
Ideas of ecological selfhood are imbued within dynamically shifting combinations of
these three senses of self. Each participant will navigate through enfolded layers of
image, sound and physical sensation17, also named me, us and others. This suggests a
form of social innovation which requires being at ease not only what we know or have
affinity with, but also with total otherness; those people, things or experiences with
whom we have an inimical relationship, regardless of whether we can or are able to
recognise that relationship.
17 comprised of graphic imagery, interactive sound (including substantial sub sonics) and other physical experiences such as wind blast and changes in moisture
In conversation after the showing with Dr. Liz Baker, Photo Sonja de Sterke
Shifting Dust: An Embedded Ecological Metaphor
Our world is literally and figuratively turning to ‘dust’. The use of the concept of ‘dust’
as a content vehicle throughout the proposed work acknowledges decay and renewal and
the transitional, cyclical natures of interrelated ecologies. It also suggests advanced levels
of degradation potentially beyond reparation.
Dust18 exists both on and beneath the border of our unaided vision. Dust particles are
predominantly forms of disintegrating solids that often become the substance or catalyst
of future forms. Like many tiny forms dust is an often unnoticed residue with ‘planet-size
consequences’. (Holmes 2001, p.3)
18 Dust is defined as a sub 63 micron particles (Holmes 2001, p.3)
Humble dust.. built the very planet we walk upon. It tinkers with the weather and it spices the air we breathe. Billions of tons of tiny particles rise into the air annually – the dust of deserts and forgotten kings mixing with volcanic ash, sea salt, leaf fragments, scales from butterfly wings, shreds of T-shirts, and fireplace soot. And eventually of course, all this dust must settle. (Holmes 2001, p. Dust Jacket)
Within Intimate Transactions (Shifting Dusts), any action one participant will make in
either of the me, us and others layers may impact on every other participant due to visible
and audible ‘dusts’ they inherently ‘kick up’. These residual dusts of prior experiences19
become ‘spread’ across the network by the server just as physical dusts move in wind-
blown ‘oceans’ across our globe and through space. The custom server software which
connects all physical and virtual installation spaces together controls the ‘weather’
patterns that in turn steer these dusts. Whilst participants are always creating dusts they
learn over time of its qualities through receiving them, resulting from the actions of other
participants across the network.
Navigating the me-ness layer will initially suggest increased individual agency through a
familiar, recognisable, ‘uncontaminated’ audio-visual environment, free of such
incoming ‘dusts’. Participants may remain in this layer and choose to limit their exposure
to these dusts, but in doing so will limit the scope of their experiences. Subsequent
navigation through layers of us-ness into layers of other-ness will present them with less
familiar, controllable experiences. The work’s server will ensure that exposure to most
diverse dusts lies in the user zone of other-ness. Just as human intimacy often requires a
move beyond one’s own sense of me-ness (or personal comfort zone), so increasing
intimacy of transactions will occur the more participants choose to expose themselves to
19 For example this is achieved in audio through techniques of granular synthesis
other-ness. Therefore the experience of the work for each participant has the potential to
involve the understanding and reconciliation of these three ‘ecologies’ of me, us and
others.
Intimate Transactions Proof of Concept, Brisbane Powerhouse. Photo Sonja de Sterke The process by which each participant will secure intimate transactions with others
across the network is made possible by the conceptual vehicle of dust. This happens via
an indirect, affective process whereby each participant begins to sense the intimate
presence20 of the others across multiple physical, functional, perceptual and disciplinary
20 This borrows the language of the Liveness Manifold research group led by RMIT’s Pia Ednie Brown. On their web page they state their interest in liveness across networks as engendering,
an emphasis on the production of closeness across geographic and/or representational distance or, in other words, the sense of immediate, intimate presence through remote means. Attention is focused on ways that affective (qualitative, emergent) dimensions of events might be transduced across distinct
spaces. Within this operational process many modes of participant experimentation will
be possible and the choice to either cooperate or act in ways that make other participant’s
experiences less satisfying (or even distressing) are optioned. By understanding the
‘dustiness’ of their own actions through reading others’ incoming ‘dusts’ participants will
begin to sense the role, place and influence of each participant of this simplified ecology.
Therefore the overarching research question for this work becomes how, when and at
what level might each participant’s understanding of the evolving model lead them to act
in ways that balance me-ness, us-ness and other-ness in ways of benefit to the entire
network, rather than favouring any one individual participant alone.
Feedback
It is too early to know how some of these proposed features will be used by participants
in the fully realised version of the work. However interviewee comments following the
first proof of concept showings suggest a level of consistency with the originating
Ecosophical questions, and indicate potential new directions for Ecosphical praxis.
Ecosophical question 1 suggested that the work should be experienced through
a “living” of the experience that the work either instigates or sets the context for. It is this living that becomes the key factor in the subsequent processes of making meaning for participants. (Armstrong 2003, p. 275)
This sense of oneness or living with the evolution of the work is implied by the following
media, moments and spaces: how we allow the openness of affectivity to survive (instrumental) shifts of register.
respondent’s comments.
It was hard to separate out what I was thinking from what I was seeing, from what I was doing. And it got more and more like that. And sometime it would become very slow and you wouldn’t want to move it at hardly all but there’d be lots of shifts occurring within that, and I found that really quite haunting and really very intense .. as you started to explore the different range of gestures within those limits, you know, you got different kinds of qualities coming through and I found that really very moving sometimes. (Respondent 2003) (It was) not so much navigating as, almost expressing. (Respondent 2003)
These responses also evoke Question 2’s ‘poetics of energy transfer’ in that they imply
the potential of increasing sensitivity to the ecologies implicated within the flows of the
work. They further evoke Question 2’s concept that participants are ‘woven within the
experience and systemic operation of the work itself’.
Keith Armstrong Demonstrates The Theoretical Structure of the Intimate Transactions, 2003, Image Sonia de Sterke
This connectivity between participants’ bodies and resultant image, in a way that
suggests a melding of energy flows, is implied by the following respondent.
You’re in direct relation with the image that you are seeing so your body space is really extended out to the screen, and that’s really interesting, you know metaphysically, but when you network that, that’s going to be incredible! . (Respondent 2003)
New Openings for Ecosophical Praxis
The challenge now lies in realising the full scope of this work in a form suited for broad
scale public exhibition within the context of a scholarly debate. At this early stage
(following the first proof of concept showing) a number of new questions for Ecosophical
practice are beginning to emerge.
These include the particular power of seamless, visceral, physical experiences to
engender a bodily understanding of ecological flows, replacing the necessity to think out
actions in advance with a trust in the individual languages of the moving body. Another
emerging issue involves the particular scenographical positioning of the interface and
presentational devices in ways that increase a sense of empathy between participant and
media. A further area of questioning lies in an interrogation of the emergent properties of
the work as they function at an entire network level, and their subsequent effects upon
participants’ experiences and actions when fed back and recycled into the entire system.
These questions will be elaborated and developed in future papers as the work continues
to be created. When fully realised in late 2004 it is intended that this experiment with the
‘problem of ecology’ will be one further fibre in a dense embroidery of offerings needed
to tackle what Fry (2003b) has rightly called the ‘greatest interdisciplinary problem’ of
our time.
References
Armstrong, K. 2003 Towards an Ecosophical Praxis of New Media Space Design, Ph.D. Thesis, QUT,
Brisbane
Armstrong, K. 2003 Towards an Ecosophical Praxis of New Media, Paper presented at DAC 2003
Conference, RMIT, Melbourne, published at (URL: http://hypertext.rmit.edu.au/dac/papers/, accessed
12/12/03)
Armstrong, K. 2003, Archive-web site (URL: http://www.outlook.com.au/keith, accessed 12/12/03)
Baker, E. and Armstrong, K. 2003, A Conversation (URL:
http://www.outlook.com.au/keith/projects/intimate_t/Bakerconv.htm), accessed 12/12/03)
Baker, E. 1997 Ecological Being/Being Ecological: Self, Morality, and the Environmental Exigency, Ph.D.
Thesis, Faculty of Science, Griffith University, Nathan, Brisbane
Conley, V. 1997 Ecopolitics, The Environment In Poststructuralist Thought, Routledge, London
Brady, V. 1998 South of my Days, A Biography of Judith Wright, Harper Collins, Sydney
Fry T. and Willis Am. (ca 2000) Openings into the Ecology of Information Technology.
Impacts of Information Technology, Briefing Paper, (URL:
http://www.edf.edu.au/Resources/EDFPublications/Articles/ArticlesMenuMain.htm, accessed 12/12/03)
Fry, T. 1999 A New Design Philosophy: An Introduction to Defuturing, UNSW Press, Sydney
Fry, T. 2000, ‘Know Your Enemy: Defining the Problem of Unsustainability’, paper presented at Shaping
the Sustainable Millennium Conference, (URL:
http://www.edf.edu.au/Resources/EDFPublications/Articles/ArticlesMenuMain.htm, accessed 12/12/03)
Fry, T. 2003, ‘Dialectic of Sustainment’ in The Voice of
Sustainment (URL: http://www.desphilosophy.com/dpp/home.html, Issue #5, 2003, accessed 13/12/03)
Fry, T. 2003, Lecture to Undergraduates in Professional Practice Subject, recorded at QUT,
Communication Design, 4th September
Guattari, F.2000, The Three Ecologies, Athlone, London. Previously published as Les Trois Ecologies,
Galilee, Paris, 1989
Haseman, B. 2002 Placing the Performing Arts Within the Creative Industries: New Challenges as Content
Creator, QUT, Unpublished Paper
Heim, M. 1998, ‘Virtual Reality and the Tea Ceremony’, (URL:
http://www.mheim.com/html/docs/vrtea/vrtea.html, accessed 13/12/03)
The Liveness Manifold (URL: http://liveness.sial.rmit.edu.au/, accessed 12/12/03)
Saper, C. 2001 Networked Art, Minnesota Press, Minneapolis
Sessions, G. (Ed.) 1995 Deep Ecology For the 21st Century, Shambhala, Boston
Manovich, L. 2001 The Language of New Media, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass.
Merchant, C. 1992 Radical Ecology, The Search For A Livable World, Routledge, New York
Merchant, C. 1994 Ecology, Key Concepts In Critical Theory, Humanities Press, Princeton
Naess, A. 1995 ‘Deep Ecology for the Twenty Second Century’, in Sessions, G. (Ed.) Deep Ecology for the
21st Century, Shambhala, Boston, pp. 463-467
Paul, C. Digital Art, Thames and Hudson, London
Rieser, M. and Zapp, A. (Eds.) 2002 New Screen Media, Cinema/Art/Narrrative), BFI Publishing, ZKM,
Karlsruhe